What would you recommend the Democratic Party do?

Well, it won’t be easy. You try to be productive, you try to get the Electoral Count Act and associated reforms done. You try to get some sort of Build Back Better thing through Congress with Joe Manchin’s support, or you break it up into pieces that are popular and try to get them through. These are the kinds of things you have to do to convince people you’re effective, and you can govern.

The second thing is, whatever you haven’t done to try to get the country back to normal, do it. We’re fast approaching the end of this pandemic. A Democrat should be ready to reopen the country. You’ve just got to send the message that what you want is for people to be happy and for things to be back to normal.

A third thing here that’s related to any elections: They’ve got to try to lift the ceiling on their support levels, which I think will necessitate some drawing of lines within the party, where you say, “No, no, we believe in being tough on crime. We think it is an absolutely atrocious idea to defund the police.”